Disclaimer: J.K.R. owns everything you recognize in this story, Robert Doisneau owns the picture, I own everything you don't recognize! (Kthxbye!)
September 1, 1975
Lily Evans was ecstatic. She walked through the train station with a glowing smile and a spring in her step that drew more than a few questioning eyes her way. As she approached the brick barrier, her smile grew, if possible, even wider, and her step sped almost imperceptibly. With all the confidence and pomp of one with newfound authority, Lily Evans entered Platform 9 ¾ for her fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as... a prefect. It felt like a dream. In fact, she had had this dream before, but her imagination had really never done justice to the teeming excitement of the platform, the smell of the grease and steel from the train, the steam mixing with some unidentifiable feeling in the air that she had long ago simply resorted to calling magic.
"Lily!" Someone shouted, snapping the girl out of her reverie.
"Marley! How do you always manage to find me before I've been on the platform for even a minute?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well," Marlene Simmons, Lily's best mate and roommate began, "It might have something to do with the fact that you're towering over everyone else with that Gryffindor banner you like to call hair standing out like some sort of rescue signal, not to mention a grin that's liable to blind anyone within a one hundred meter radius!"
"Oh, what do you know about radii, you silly little bint? I know for a fact you just barely managed to pass any of your muggle math classes!" Lily snickered.
"Oi! No abusing Simmons without me!"
"And hello to you too, dear." Marlene said dryly, addressing Alice Prewett, a sixth year Gryffindor that the other two were quite close to.
"So, Lily, why exactly is Marley here a bint?" Alice inquired, cheerfully ignoring Marlene's sarcasm.
"Oh, the usual," Lily responded airily, "Mocking me for my bad luck in the genetic lottery!"
"Lily," Alice began, a touch more seriously, "You realize that most of your year and half of mine are stark raving mad with jealousy over your entire appearance, don't you?"
"If you're concerned for my self-esteem, Alice, I can assure you, I am quite comfortable with being the gawky ginger girl from Gryffindor. Kidding, kidding!" She added, seeing Alice's face darken again, "And as far as jealousy goes, I am fairly certain that it isn't nearly as widespread as you make it out to be."
"Evans's potential self-confidence issues aside, can we please find a compartment before some gormless firsties take all the good ones? Merlin knows that Lily here would sooner have us sitting in the corridor than kick someone out of a seat," Marlene broke in, understanding that Lily really had no desire to be having this discussion with Alice again.
Everything about Alice Prewett was sweet, Marlene thought, from her adorable wavy, dishwater blonde bob, to her glittering baby blues, to her absolute inability to hear anyone anywhere put themselves down in any way, even sarcastically. For Merlin's sake the girl was even short! For some reason, Marlene had always equated short stature with absolute sugary sweetness, but she admitted that this belief was quite possibly a product of Alice.
By the time Marlene had reemerged from her evaluation of the older girl, the three friends had managed to get themselves and their, somewhat extensive, luggage onto the scarlet express. Now all they had to do was find a compartment. Working their way to the back of the train, their knocks were met with uncomfortable mutters about full compartments and saved seats.
"I swear on Agrippa's lacy underthings that the next three seats we come to, we'll take..." Lily moaned, switching her trunk to her other hand.
Raising her eyebrows skeptically, Marlene inquired, "Even if they're with Slytherins?"
Lily turned around with a huff. "At this point, I would be willing to take a seat next to James sodding Potter!"
As she finished her rant, Lily raised her hand to rap on the frosted glass of a compartment door, but when she brought her hand down to knock (rather more forcefully that was strictly necessary) her knuckles were met not with glass, but with cloth. She turned to see what could possibly be causing this strange phenomenon, and stuck her face straight into a well-muscled, tee-shirt clad chest.
"Why, hello, Evans, it's nice to see you too. Now what did you want me for?"
Lily felt an arm snake around her waist before she could do anything to stop it, and looked indignantly up into the laughing hazel eyes of none other than "James sodding Potter" himself.